Thursday, April 16, 2009

Eh....

(CNSNews.com) - Georgetown University says it covered over the monogram “IHS”--symbolizing the name of Jesus Christ—because it was inscribed on a pediment on the stage where President Obama spoke at the university on Tuesday and the White House had asked Georgetown to cover up all signs and symbols there.[...]

“In coordinating the logistical arrangements for yesterday’s event, Georgetown honored the White House staff’s request to cover all of the Georgetown University signage and symbols behind Gaston Hall stage,” Julie Green Bataille, associate vice president for communications at Georgetown, told CNSNews.com.

“The White House wanted a simple backdrop of flags and pipe and drape for the speech, consistent with what they’ve done for other policy speeches,” she added. “Frankly, the pipe and drape wasn’t high enough by itself to fully cover the IHS and cross above the GU seal and it seemed most respectful to have them covered so as not to be seen out of context.”

1. What exactly was the policy that Obama was speaking on?

2. If setting is important to the point of asking host institutions to cover up all signage and symbols, what's the point of even giving speeches outside of settings where the White House can control everything according to its whim?

3. Was this little talk by the president scheduled before or after the Notre Dame thing came up? Can we say, 'PR disaster?'